Fire engulfs Franklin home

A home on Hillside Road was condemned after a two-alarm fire tore through it yesterday afternoon. “I came home and saw the house engulfed in flames,” neighbor Cheryl Hobbs said. Onlookers said they saw flames shooting from the roof and back of house at 149 Hillside Road, as well as thick, black smoke.

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Milford Daily News

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Posted Apr. 5, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Updated Apr 5, 2012 at 5:04 AM

By None

Posted Apr. 5, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Updated Apr 5, 2012 at 5:04 AM

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A home on Hillside Road was condemned after a two-alarm fire tore through it yesterday afternoon.

“I came home and saw the house engulfed in flames,” neighbor Cheryl Hobbs said.

Onlookers said they saw flames shooting from the roof and back of house at 149 Hillside Road, as well as thick, black smoke.

The family in the home escaped, but while firefighters were able to pull both of their cats from the home, one died of smoke inhalation.

“The air was literally black,” Dean College sophomore Ashley Jordan said. Jordan and her classmate, freshman Molly MacKenzie, said they came onto the scene as the firefighters arrived, and saw flames leaping from the roof.

“In the back of the house you could see (the smoke) for miles,” she said.

Firefighters arrived just before 2:30 p.m., and had knocked down the majority of the flames by 3:07 p.m., Deputy Police Chief Paul Sharpe Jr. said.

By that time, only blackened walls and tattered curtains could be seen through the open and broken windows on both stories of the home.

“It’s fire-damaged so badly it’s hard to even get a value on the contents,” Building Commissioner David Roche said. “The house is a total loss.”

Roche estimated the cost of the damage, including loss of the home’s contents, to be between $700,000 and $750,000.

“Most of the house has fire damage, particularly in the rear of the house,” Sharpe said.

Sharpe said Franklin, Wrentham, Bellingham, Milford, and Norfolk fire departments responded to the fire, with Medway covering the station.

One firefighter was injured fighting the fire, straining a muscle, Chief Gary McCarraher told the Town Council last night. He was treated and released from the hospital. He will miss a few days of work, but will return soon, McCarraher said.

The American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts went to the fire to assist two adults and two children, said spokeswoman Kat Powers.

Powers did not say what assistance was provided, or who the people were, but noted that it could be as much as finding the family shelter, or as simple as offering them strong detergent for the smoke in their clothes.

The house, a Victorian, was valued at $311,300, according to the assessor’s office, and was bought in 2003 by Douglas Lanich and Michelle Kelly.

A placard on the front of the home read “Circa 1894,” but the assessor’s office was not able to confirm if the home was registered as historic.

No cause has been determined yet, but the state fire marshal arrived at the scene around 5 p.m. yesterday to investigate.

Alison McCall can be reached at 508-634-7521 or amccall@wickedlocal.com.